Jon Johnson's plea for leniency, to help his grieving daughter, fails to persuade federal judge

The former New Orleans city councilman will serve a 6-month federal prison sentence for skimming FEMA funds into campaign account

Jon Johnson pleaded for mercy. The disgraced former city councilman stood before a federal judge Thursday afternoon, describing an 8-year-old daughter still tormented over the death of her mother last year from breast cancer.

"I stand here before you this afternoon simply saying that I made a terrible mistake that I regret. I regret it personally and I regret it for my daughter," Johnson said.

His appeal to U.S. District Judge Lance Africk marked Johnson's first public comments since he pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge in July for siphoning FEMA grant money to his unsuccessful run for state Senate in 2007.

"I was the only one who was there for my daughter," he said, referring to the illness and untimely death of his wife, Dr. Angela Barthe in September 2011. "There are still rooms in our house she can't go into. ... I don't know how she can survive."

Johnson was backed by a gallery full of friends and church members, more than 100 letters of support and a pledge by associates to put up the nearly $80,000 that he owes in restitution -- money that the government says Johnson misspent.

Ex-New Orleans City Councilman Jon JohnsonThe Times-Picayune

For Africk, it wasn't enough. The judge recounted Johnson's long career as a state lawmaker before handing him a six-month prison sentence. Johnson is due to surrender and begin serving his time on Jan. 8.

The sentence also includes six months of home detention following his time behind bars, the restitution money and a $5,000 fine.

"You understood, as a former elected official, that your conduct had the potential to breed public mistrust of government grants and subsidies. Notwithstanding that fact, you were blind to the potential consequences of your conduct," Africk said. "Public service, whether elected public service or not, should be a calling and not an opportunity to feed one's ambition."

Africk also chided Johnson for a letter he submitted to the court, begging Africk not to "punish" his daughter.

"Let me be crystal clear. This court is not punishing your daughter," the judge said. "The collateral consequences of what you have done falls on your shoulders and not the court's shoulders."

Johnson, 63, pleaded guilty in July and resigned from the City Council the same day, abruptly ending a political career that had revived after a 23-year stint in the state Legislature ended in 2003.

He admitted to swiping funds from a nonprofit group, Ninth Ward Development Corp., that he took control of following Hurricane Katrina. The goal, he told supporters, was to restore the old T.J. Semmes Elementary School building at 1008 Jourdan Ave. and several key services the agency operated before the storm, such as a low-income housing, group homes and daycare.

Ninth Ward Housing Development Corp., under the direction of Jon Johnson, won a FEMA obligation to fix up the Semmes Building at 1008 Jourdan Ave., seen July 18, as well as three group homes and five low-income housing units. An unlicensed construction worker told state auditors the nonprofit paid him between $30,000 and $40,000 to gut and remove debris from properties covered under the $2.8 million obligation. Catherine Threlkeld

Under Johnson's direction, Ninth Ward had won a $2.8 million FEMA obligation to fix up the Semmes Building and repair three group homes and five low-income housing units, according to a January report by the state legislative auditor's office.

The gutting of the school building was completed, but federal prosecutors accused Johnson of false billing and then misusing some of the funds.

Johnson also "conspired to submit false and fabricated invoices" to the Small Business Administration, which had advanced him some of the $150,000 it had authorized for him under a low-interest disaster loan program to fix up his storm-damaged house.

Prosecutors in U.S. Attorney Jim Letten's office have declined to say exactly how much money Johnson stole.

Murray has steadfastly argued that Johnson put far more money into the nonprofit agency than he ever took out, and that his greatest sin was commingling it with the FEMA funds.

Murray provided numerous documents to The Times-Picayune showing that Johnson and Barthe refused salaries for work with Ninth Ward Housing and another nonprofit in which he was heavily involved, the New Orleans Health Clinic, to the tune of at least $575,000.

The documents, including copies of checks, also indicate that the couple paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars from personal accounts and Johnson's fast-food businesses to the two nonprofit agencies, along with paying for work on the school building.

Still, the legislative auditor's office said it couldn't account for dozens of checks from Ninth Ward Housing that were made out to people who couldn't be located or businesses with no apparent skills for gutting a building.

Six of the checks were made out to Johnson's sister.

Johnson admitted that he arranged for $16,640 to be transferred from Ninth Ward to the New Orleans Health Clinic, where he had check-writing authority. The transferred money was then used to contribute to his campaign and pay its expenses, federal officials said.

Just how the government came up with the restitution figure -- $79,691 -- was unclear, Murray said.

"Out of the air. It's just something the government made up," Murray said after the sentencing. "It wasn't anything he agreed to. It came out of somebody's head."

Anna Christman, a spokeswoman for Letten's office, said FEMA paid about $139,000 to Ninth Ward for the work. About $40,000 went to a local contractor, and some of the rest was used for "legitimate purposes." The remainder is what the government contended Johnson misspent.

Murray said it was doubtful that Johnson would have pleaded guilty if he knew he would be sent off to prison. Asked how Johnson would pay the restitution, he shook his head. "The man's broke," he said.

Earlier in court, Murray stressed that the crime took place when Johnson was not in office, although Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Friel noted that the investigation was ongoing while Johnson sat on the council.

Murray sought to distance Johnson from other New Orleans politicians who have faced the wrath of federal corruption probes.

"There can be nothing that's any more trustworthy than the work he did for these charitable organizations," Murray said. "It was a generous thing that he did. It was not a selfish thing."

Afterward, Johnson sat with friends on a bench in the courtroom hallway, subdued and declining to comment on the sentence, of which he must serve at least 85 percent.

"My only concern today is my daughter," he said. "Everything I've done has been done to properly care for my daughter."

Two co-conspirators in the case also have pleaded guilty for their roles in helping the alleged scheme. Asif Gafur, a longtime accountant for Johnson's businesses and his campaign, pleaded guilty last month to breaking up a check for $8,000 that Johnson handed to him from Ninth Ward, then securing nine money orders for Johnson's campaign.

Gafur faces a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Roy Lewis, a longtime Johnson assistant who helped manage Ninth Ward, pleaded guilty in August to misprision of a felony and faces up to three years in prison at a sentencing scheduled for Jan. 23.

Authorities say Johnson and Lewis together submitted the bum paperwork for the FEMA grant money. Johnson and Lewis submitted a request for reimbursement for the Semmes Building work in May 2007.

It included three contracts between Ninth Ward and Earl Myers Construction, according to the state report. Myers told state auditors that the proposals for the Semmes Building weren't his and he didn't do the work. The auditor's office found only two checks from Ninth Ward to Myers, totaling less than $8,000.

Myers has since entered an unrelated guilty plea in the scandal involving New Orleans Affordable Homeownership, a city-funded home-remediation program.

Ninth Ward's initial request for reimbursement for the work included three contracts and invoices for the same amount. They were signed by a different, unlicensed contractor, Daniel Lopes, the report said.

Lopes later told state auditors that Ninth Ward paid him between $30,000 and $40,000 for all the work he did for the nonprofit. He said he worked on an hourly rate and didn't keep track of which project he was working on, according to the report.

In late 2009, the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, which administered the FEMA grant money, began asking for new documentation for the Semmes Building work.

Johnson and Lewis were slow to turn it over, eventually submitting invoices that appeared to be hastily prepared fakes, according to state authorities. The state agency called in the legislative auditor's office around August 2010, less than six months after Johnson won his council seat.

Lopes also submitted invoices to SBA, at Johnson's request, for the work at Johnson's home, federal prosecutors allege. Lopes has not been charged with a crime.

Johnson had a long history with New Orleans Health Corp. For a time in the 1980's he was its board president, and as a state legislator he helped funnel state grant money to the agency.

Africk said he granted Johnson about five weeks of freedom to lock down care for his daughter. Africk noted that the schedule allowed him to be home at the end of the school year.